


Ignition

by Golden_Moon_Huntress



Series: The Debt Owed [2]
Category: The Gifted - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24640987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Moon_Huntress/pseuds/Golden_Moon_Huntress
Summary: I do not own the Gifted.I also do not own the song that inspired the title and summary.This is a companion piece to the Debt Owed, mostly short drabbles and oneshots from different perspectives or unseen moments from the show that were altered in the Debt Owed because of... reasons. Also, this is a quiet beginning, but I'm trying to keep things as chronological as I can, which is why this is first and not something more dramatic. This one is set in the first half of chapter one.
Relationships: Caitlin Strucker & Lauren Strucker, Lauren Strucker & Andy Strucker, Reed Strucker & Lauren Strucker
Series: The Debt Owed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781644
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	1. Distance

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the Gifted.  
> I also do not own the song that inspired the title and summary.  
> This is a companion piece to the Debt Owed, mostly short drabbles and oneshots from different perspectives or unseen moments from the show that were altered in the Debt Owed because of... reasons. Also, this is a quiet beginning, but I'm trying to keep things as chronological as I can, which is why this is first and not something more dramatic. This one is set in the first half of chapter one.

She was worried about Lauren.

Andy, he had always been a loner with one or two close friends, but Lauren was always a people person, one of the Popular Girls, along with being an almost straight A student.

Caitlin wasn’t sure when that had stopped being true.

She seemed down recently, and had got a D on one of her recent reports. Sometimes when Caitlin spoke to her it was like she wasn’t even there. The lights were on but no one was home.

Caitlin had always tried to care for her children, to be there for them, to love them, but recently Lauren had been… distant.

Maybe the cookout this weekend would help.


	2. Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during Chapter One of The Debt Owed.

Lauren was silent, trembling, staring at the road ahead.

She still looked pale, her hands clenched tightly together in her lap.

“Do you want me to stop by the shops and grab you anything?” Reed asked. Lauren shook her head.

“No thanks. I just want to get home and go to bed.”

Reed reached over to touch her head. She didn’t feel feverish, if anything she was clammy cold. She pulled away as though he might burn her.

“I’m not six years old anymore dad.”

“Lauren, there isn’t… anything else going on is there?”

She shook her head again.

“Are you sure? You can talk to me you know?”

“It’s fine dad. I’ve just… caught some bug.”

“You’ve been quiet lately.”

She shrugged. “I guess there’s not much to speak about.”

“I know I’m at work a lot, but you know I’m here for you. You can always talk to me.”

“Yeah,” she muttered, leaning against the car door and turning her gaze out the window.

Reed sighed.

Teenagers, even sick ones, would still be teenagers.


	3. Blind

They couldn’t see it.

They never saw it.

Sometimes Andy wondered why.

Sometimes Andy wondered how.

Sometimes Andy wondered how he could possibly have missed it until Lauren finally sat there and admitted it.

It seemed obvious, but maybe it was only because he knew how to recognise it.

It was the look Lauren gave the TV when it played an opening scene of a war movie and people were being gunned down.

It was her lack of words when their dad told them about his latest prosecution of a mutant girl who killed two men.

It was her comments on current technology sometimes, like she was confused or surprised by something she had known for years.

But their parents…

They never saw it.

And she never spoke of it to them.

How could she, when the job that kept their dad away from home so often could be the very thing Lauren was dealing with?

Because neither of them ever said the word mutant, but he remembered that flash from the park, that moment of power and being someone else, and they never didn’t say it either.


	4. Memories

_“My sister and I have… flashes.”_

How could she not offer to help? That was all she had ever done, her entire life.

(sometimes though she was pretty sure lauren and andys problem was beyond her)

_“Visions of some sort from the last people to have powers like ours.”_

That had turned out to be a massive understatement. It had turned out to be more than that, much more than that in Lauren’s case. The memories were part of her, part of her own instead of separate like Dreamer had half-expected, and so was the girl.

(shed never known anything like this no one and nothing had ever prepared her for a situation like this one)

_“It’ll be a bit like your foresight I suppose Johnny.”_

(that was still what part of her had expected, even after lauren and andy said no)

_“Yeah, except foresight doesn’t talk to you.”_

The girl – Andrea - talked.

She had never expected that (it surprised her every time even when lauren had told her warned her about it).

She spoke through Lauren mostly. Andy seemed to have a way of recognising when it was happening.

(it was still a little unnerving all the same)

_“Or advocate being a murderous psychopath whose desired solution to pretty much everything is slaughtering it.”_

She assumed she was exaggerating.

(she was not)

_“Otherwise, yeah. Exactly like foresight.”_

Only in the fact that it kept happening.

She expected to remove the memories once, and for that to fix it.

(it didnt)

Lauren and Andy kept having the flashes, kept coming back, time after time after time, sitting there in the office until it had simply become a matter of routine. At least it seemed to be helping. Andy was growing less afraid of his powers, and Lauren was no longer the frightened, muttering girl who had first fallen through Blink’s portal.

They were getting better.

(but she didn’t know what to do to make it stop)

_“Not now,”_ Thunderbird had said, and that was enough.

She waited until the emergency was over, until Clarice was recovering, and then she took the two of them aside. “Can I talk to you about a private matter?”

Andy looked to Lauren as if for support or agreement, but nothing was forthcoming.

“Sure. What is it?”

“Why don’t you come through to the office?”

Again Andy looked at Lauren, who again was no help, her hands clenched into fists, her shoulders shaking and her eyes wild.

“It’s about your… memory problem. Look, would you like your mom here for this?”

Andy looked at Lauren yet again. This time there seemed to be an agreement. “No. This is our problem.”

So she sat them down in the office, fetched them glasses of water, and explained everything.

“I could help you, with this memories from other people problem. If you agree of course.”

“Why would we want your help?” Lauren asked, her voice cold and sharp. Andy slapped her around the back of the head. She jerked and shot him a look.

“Again,” he muttered.

They accepted her help.

(sometimes she wished they hadnt)


	5. Kaboom

One moment he was there, stood in the centre of the street while Thunderbird tried to work out what he was looking at, what he should do.

The next moment the van exploded outwards in a blast of red light.

Thunderbird couldn’t see him anymore.

Black smoke filled the air, and what he guessed were the remains of the van crackled and glowed red with embers.

Somewhere he could hear Marcos shouting for Lorna.

He stumbled through the smoke, relying more on his foresight to guide him since all he could see was the goffy smoke of the explosion, all he could smell was the stench of it, and all he could hear were the screams of the injured and shouting of the guards.

He found Pulse by tripping over him.

His body was splayed across the tarmac, his chest badly burnt and his lower throat pierced bya shard of metal.

There was no time to mourn.

He had already done that anyway.


	6. Cornered

It was only when they cornered her that Esme realised the Strucker siblings might be more than she anticipated.

And she didn’t have Sophie and Phoebe to back her up.

She’d met them on arrival (and Otto Strucker was there too, how interesting, no one had said anything about that. she wanted him too) and hoped for a chance to talk, but their first conversation didn’t go the way she wanted, on her terms. They followed her out from the session with Chloe Tan and caught up with her in an empty hallway.

“I know you,” the girl she knew to be called Lauren said. Esme decided to go straight with introductions.

“I… don’t think we’ve properly met actually. I’m Esme.”

The girl stared hard at her, and then something seemed to ripple across her face and mind.

“Like Emma but not Emma. How very fascinating.”

The use of her biological mother’s name hit her like a brick sledgehammer. “How could you possibly-”

The boy she knew to be called Andy grabbed her. “My sister knows things sometimes. We have to go now, nice talking, bye.”

Esme reached out for- uh, something. “Wait-”

They were gone before she could decide on a course of action.

For the first time in a very long time, Esme didn’t know how to react or what to do.

Nothing had prepared her for this situation.

No one had warned her about… whatever that was.

Lauren and Andy had just pulled a wildcard.

And she didn’t know what to do to get it in her hand.


	7. Flashpoint

Everything is going too fast – too fast – way too fast.

They are on the bus to be taken to prison.

The power restriction collars are deactivating.

The driver is shooting the guard.

The driver is shooting himself.

They are looking for the keys – removing the collars – scrambling and struggling amongst the panicked prisoners aboard the bus.

They are making their way off the bus.

They are looking at Esme and… uh, clones of Esme? 

(no, wait, sisters, esme said the trask lab had her sisters)

"Time to go boys and girls,” the three are saying. “The fun's just starting.”

It’s fast – it’s too fast – crazy fast - 

And then the world is exploding.

The transport bus is… disintegrating? People are screaming. The nearby guard buildings are… doing whatever the same thing was.

So is she.

She is being ripped apart, bit by bit, piece by piece.

The screaming intensifies. 

Lauren and Andy are… the epicentre. Whatever they had done in the lab, in that room, they’re doing it again, except this time…

Esme and… Esme clones are looking… confused.

Probably they weren’t expecting this.

How could anyone be expecting this?

John would have known what to do.

Screaming, she does the one thing she knows how to do. 

And the one thing she had only done once before.

She rips open a portal with John as the anchor instead of a direct destination and throws herself at the source of the destruction.

(maybe one day she would regret it but at that moment and the height of the panic she couldnt think)

They are falling through the portal, and tumbling to the hard ground on the other side. 

Lauren and Andy are starting to scream, but whatever force they had been generating had stopped when her collision with them knocked them apart.

John’s voice rings through the air and the world starts to slow down again.

“Don’t let them touch,” she screams as Lauren reaches for Andy’s hand again. “Don’t- Don’t- Don’t-!”

As though a switch had been hit, Lauren is reeling back and staring at Andy as he scrambles back away from her crying ‘Lauren no, Lauren, Lauren stop!”

Her portal is closing – closing – closed.

She doesn’t know what happened.

She doesn’t understand.

Lauren and Andy are still staring at each other.


	8. Blame

He couldn’t blame them.

He knew he couldn’t.

But part of him also knew they were the reason Sonya was dead.

She gave herself up for them, and they didn’t even get away.

According to Blink, Campbell shot her because they wouldn’t combine their powers like he wanted.

Why didn’t they just do it?

According to Clarice, Sonya had told them not to.

_“Don’t do anything for him,”_ she said she had said.

And now she was gone.

And they had combined powers anyway, so what was the point in it? Why did she have to die?

Clarice had even said they looked like they enjoyed it when they blasted that wall for Campbell. It wasn’t necessary.

None of it ever had to happen.

But nothing was going to bring her back.


	9. Devastation

“You can’t leave me,” he whispered as the ash rained down around them. It could have been anywhere of a hundred places, an opera house, a battlefield, a skyscraper, a cave in a forest, but it wasn’t, and it was here, and it was now, and they were here, and they were now.

“You can’t leave me again, you can’t, you can’t leave me, I can’t be alone again.”

She gazed into his eyes and he gazed into hers.

The world stood still around them.

Everything was still glowing, as it would be for a while, and ash still swirled around them, settling in their hair and coating their lashes.

How many times had they stood amongst the destruction like this?

Too many to count.

Until-

“I’m here,” she whispered, and that was all he needed to hear.

They fell into each other’s arms, crying and shaking and covered in ash and dust.

“Don’t leave me.”

It didn’t matter which one of them said it.


	10. Fracture Points

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own The Gifted.  
> Also, content warning for non-explicit nudity and vaguely suggestive themes if you really squint.

Part of them felt like if they let go, even for a moment, even for a second, the other might vanish.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms at the back of the van, and only woke to stumble out to the Nashville Way Station, where someone (it might have been Sage but they were never sure and never asked) showed them into a room containing several sets of bunk beds and a few already sleeping inhabitants and pointed out the bathroom.

They fell into one of the bunks, still fully dressed, and fell asleep again.

They woke to the bright morning sunlight and finally broke apart as they sat up. He fought the instinct to grab at her.

She combed ash from her hair with her fingers. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Good idea,” he replied.

They both stank of ash and destruction and Fenris and who knew what else. He was sure they’d stunk of worse, but being clean was always nice.

Neither of them moved.

“Are you… expecting him to go with you?” Skyler asked from a top bunk.

“No,” she squeaked, standing up.

They looked at each other some more.

She pointed wordlessly at the bathroom door. He nodded. She crossed the room, a little shakily, and let herself inside.

They lasted all of four minutes.

One, and she was slowly pulling off her clothes that felt familiar and strange at the same time, peeling them from her skin and piling them in the corner knowing she was only going to have to put them back on again because she didn’t have anything else.

Two, and he was already wondering if she was alright, if she was hurt, if she was even still there, if some bastard might have shot her through the window he didn’t even know for sure was in that room but was sure there was.

Three, and she was turning the knob for the water, shifting from foot to foot as she waited for it to heat up to a temperature she knew she’d never be happy with anyway, wondering what he was doing without her and if this was all some kind of bizarre dream.

Four, and this was breaking point. It felt like he was breaking inside. Parts of him were splitting apart, tearing at the seams. He wasn’t sure of where he was, what he was, who he was. He didn’t know which name to shout, only that he needed her.

He stumbled to his feet and staggered to the bathroom door, shoving it open and falling through.

She met him on the other side, barefoot in her jumper and panties.

They stared at each other. The showerhead dripped water.

“You too huh?” she asked.

He closed the door. “I guess so.”

If this was yesterday morning he’d have felt awkward, but it wasn’t yesterday morning, and he wasn’t that boy anymore. They were still broken though, still healing, still understanding.

“Are you joining me?”

“I will… wait here.”

She nodded and switched the water on again, before pulling off the rest of her clothes and stepping into the bathtub. He sat down beside it, thinking about how much better he’d feel if he was holding her hand, while she washed the ash and stench from her skin and hair. Once she was done she stepped out and let him take his turn.

They were holding hands again when they left the bathroom.


	11. I Knew You Were Trouble

He had known there was something wrong with them from the moment he met them.

They didn’t behave like any other mutant he had ever rescued.

The girl – Lauren, as he knew her now – was skittish and trembling, unable to focus her eyes. Her brother – Andy, as he knew him now – never left her side, pale and defensive.

He forgot about his initial worried though, as they fell into life at the Underground, accepting Dreamer’s help with those memory flashes they said they had been struggling with and even helping them rescue Lorna.

They couldn’t have done it without them.

Marcos had even come to trust them.

He was an idiot.

A grade A idiot.

Dreamer died and they proceeded to evaporate a good chunk of the Trask lab in retaliation before they could be stopped.

Only a short while later they apparently turned that same destruction on the Headquarters, leaving a gaping void of nothing.

It didn’t even surprise him when they walked away from their protesting parents to join Lorna – his Lorna though, how could she do this?

Let them be the Hellfire Club’s problem now.


	12. Mistakes

“Did you see the soldiers?”

“What soldiers?”

Caitlin would forever regret not pushing harder on that question.

In the heat of the moment, she simply forgot, and Lauren never mentioned it again, so she assumed it was no big problem.

Mistake number two.

(mistake number one was not trying to talk to Lauren when she started to pull away from everyone)

Mistake number three was not questioning Lauren’s black eye, split lip, and bruises when she and Andy returned from Chattanooga, but they were so busy with Clarice.

Mistake number four was letting them walk into that power station.

Mistake number five was forcing them to try and leave through Fairburn.

Mistake number six was the fatality of the Underground’s Headquarters.

That was what had broken them.

That was what had turned the light in her babies’ eyes into something else, something rapid and violent and so very _other_ Caitlin didn’t even know what to call it.

Otto called it his father and aunt.

Mistake number seven was not pushing harder to get them to talk. She had begged and pleaded on the second night, but they only smiled and looked straight through her, assuring her they were more than fine.

They weren’t fine, but she hadn’t known what to say to make them not not fine.

Even now she didn’t know what she could possibly have done to make it better.

Maybe that was mistake number eight.

Caitlin Strucker could count her mistakes off on her fingers, and sometimes wondered what and how she could have done things differently.


	13. Rampage

He saw them on TV last night.

It was the first time they’d seen anything of them in four and a half months.

Four and a half months since that day, four and a half months since that door closed behind the monsters in his grandchildren’s bodies.

They were demonstrating against some anti-mutant rally organised by a group of Purifiers.

They didn’t use It.

They didn’t need to.

She could hold back the bullets with her shields, protecting them and crushing men against walls.

He could rip apart their vehicles and weapons, tearing them open with his bare hands and turning them into so much scrap metal.

They were inhuman.

This was just like before.


	14. Golden

The Golden Demons people called them.

Was it better or worse than Fenris?

He didn’t know.

What must it be like he wondered to hold all that power?

He wished he knew.

Maybe then he could get his children back.


	15. Monsters

Morally unstable and unpredictable psychopaths William had called them.

She had scorned him.

(and killed him)

Now she was wondering whether he might have had a point.

(just a little bit of one)


	16. Dangerous

Lorna Dane – Polaris, as she preferred – had never met a mutant she truly thought was dangerous before.

Not to her.

She’d met mutants who were powerful, mutants who had dangerous _abilities_ , but they always had some semblance of restraint, a conscience.

Lauren and Andy were dangerous.

Lauren and Andy scared her.

And it wasn’t just their powers.

It was their attitude, the way they looked at things, how they spoke to people.

It was their approach to things, the look in their eyes, the tones of their voices.

They were a force for destruction, cold, uncaring demolition.

Sometimes Polaris wondered what she had unleashed on the world.

They weren’t the kids she had trained at the Underground anymore.

Those kids were gone.


	17. Expectations

They had never met the Von Strucker twins of course.

They had vanished before their time, been long presumed dead before they was created.

The Von Strucker line had been believed to be long extinct.

As soon as that TV report on the destruction of the school was aired though, the Inner Circle had done their research, looked at their powers, worked out who they were.

Esme had known of course, when she allied herself with the underground, that the Struckers were there.

She had known she wanted them.

If they had the same abilities as their ancestors, then the Hellfire Club and Inner Circle needed it.

On first impressions she had thought Andy to be the most likely to support their cause.

She hadn’t been expecting them to see straight through her.

She hadn’t been expecting them to know who she was.

She hadn’t been expecting the look in Lauren’s eyes.

They hadn’t been expecting their reaction at Trask Industries.

When it became apparent the two of them wouldn’t be separated – and they of course understood that sentiment – they knew they needed to have both of them.

They got both of them.

They should have been more careful what they wished for.


	18. Small Things

It was the small things.

Lauren couldn’t remember the colour of her dad’s eyes.

Andy couldn’t remember the style of their mom’s hair.

Neither of them could remember their favourite toys from when they were little.

They could remember a stern man with hard eyes, a black and white photograph, tin soldiers and a fabric doll.

Memories from what were no longer different lives.

(but they did both catch themselves – and each other – searching for pictures of their parents to remind themselves what they looked like)


End file.
